Patriot Xporter XT Rage 32GB Flash Drive Review

Introduction:

When you think of computer storage, normally what comes to mind are beefy hard drives. There is another storage format that is used daily, but sometimes overlooked - portable storage, or more specifically, thumb drives. Thumb drives have increased in popularity, especially with the large capacities and lower prices consumers have seen lately. Thumb drives are considered the floppy disks of today - just about everyone I know has one in their purse, pocket, or backpack, and they fulfill a number of uses. Thumb drives are so available everywhere you go, I have even seen them in the aisle displays at the grocery store. When it comes to picking a thumb drive, there are several considerations that you need to make. Size and speeds are always factors, but not many manufacturers consider write speeds when advertising them. Most only display the read speeds, which are always higher. When you need fast write speeds, you really need to do your homework.

One drive designed to give you not only fast read speeds, but quick write speeds as well, is the Xporter XT Rage series by Patriot. Patriot designed the Rage series with write speeds in mind. The company used a Quad Channel configuration for the NAND Flash chips, which boost the write speeds to blazing fast speeds. Today we are going to be taking a look at the 32GB version of the Patriot Xporter XT Rage, which claims to have a write speed of 25MB/s using the quad channel design. Will it make the difference and live up to the expectations? There is only one way to tell, so let's take a good look at the design and put it on the testing bench.

Closer Look:

The Patriot Xporter XT Rage comes packaged in a secure blister pack that needs some attention to get it out. There are no perforations, so be prepared to cut around your prized component. On the front of the packaging there are some of the key points of the device, such as the 32GB capacity of this one in particular. There is also the Quad Channel logo and a statement of up to 25MB/s write speeds, which we will definitely put to the test. On the back of the package there are some of the specifications of the drive, such as retractable capless design, USB 2.0, and driverless support for most operating systems. This particular drive also supports Windows 7 operating systems, though surprisingly it does not support Windows Ready Boost. When I plugged in the drive and tested it for Ready Boost it gave me an error that the drive does not conform to specifications to support Ready Boost.

The design of the Patriot Rage is well thought out. The drive has a rubber coating that grips better, keeping it from sliding off a desk or out of your hands. This adds to the durability that the device has, which protects it from drops and shakes, extending the life of the drive. One big thing you might notice and really like is that there is no cap on the drive. The housing is retractable and slides back to reveal the USB connector. No more losing your cap, which quickly gets very old. The Patriot Rage is mechanically designed with speed in mind as well. The Rage uses four NAND Flash chips to store data. When the data is written, it is intelligently managed and transferred simultaneously between the four NAND chips in basically what I amounts to a RAID-0 style setup, increasing the speeds. The Patriot Rage boasts read speeds up to 27MB/s and write speeds up to 25MB/s.

Now that we have the drive out of the package, we can really see what it can do.